and again with that fucking language
Last night I tweeted, cringily, "Lernu Esperanton amikiĝi" which means "Learn Esperanto to make friends".
It's the biggest selling point for Esperanto, imo. Learn the language and suddenly you're part of a community full of people who are besides themselves that someone deigned to dabble in Zamenhof's folly.
As I mentioned before, Freakonomics did a very good episode on "Why learn Esperanto?"
If I were in a group [of Esperantists] and I needed somebody to hold my wallet, with all my money in it, I would hand it to an Esperanto speaker in full confidence that whenever I came back, they would hand it back to me and my money would still be in it. I have that level of confidence and trust in the people I know.
Followed by:
I do understand that if Esperanto begins to become much larger in society that some of the selling points of today will vanish.
I'm going to focus on the former because I would like to sell Esperantismo. Plus not everyone still uses LiveJournal so I'm not really bothering anyone. And I only have a handful of friends here.
There's a song in Esperanto called Sola, about someone who's alone and depressed who learns Esperanto, suddenly discovering all these people out there who can be eir friend. A small, but welcoming community. People who are like-minded without the assholes who would come along with the second pull quote in this post.
Many people are lonely. Having someone with whom to practice a language, talking to each other, is practice for other types of socialization. Socializing in a wider context is, for my lack of perspicacity, is dangerous. More people are keen on arguing, debating, and proving themselves right instead of listening to other people nor getting to know them.
Trust me, I understand. I tried two episodes of a podcast called Beautiful Anonymous where a guy calls people who submit their telephone numbers and they talk for 60 minutes. No more, no less. Either I'm a misanthrope, the anonymous guests just weren't my people, or the host wasn't making the guests interesting. I unsubscribed and thought to myself, "Welp, reckon I'm still a misanthrope. One who's mellowed out, but a misanthrope nonetheless."
In the context of society, being able to speak a language no one else understands, let alone knows about, is huge. It creates a safe space, but it implies trust between the speakers that neither are assholes who will break that trust. That bond. It's like going to psychological therapy, in public, but knowing your secrets are safe. Being able to communicate with any human being is important, and Esperanto facilitates that for folks.
Even misanthropes like me. Misanthropes who still struggle with correlatives. Misanthropes who realize how cringey and teenager-ly these kinds of musings can be interpreted by readers.
For what it's worth, another reason why I like Esperanto is the ability to write "adoleskanta" for "teenager-ly" without the need for a hyphen. Just use the letter "a" to convey an adjective and you're done. Also how a sentence like "I should shower then go somewhere" is shorter as "Mi duŝus kaj iri ien."
Yet I still face challenges with the accusative.
It's the biggest selling point for Esperanto, imo. Learn the language and suddenly you're part of a community full of people who are besides themselves that someone deigned to dabble in Zamenhof's folly.
As I mentioned before, Freakonomics did a very good episode on "Why learn Esperanto?"
If I were in a group [of Esperantists] and I needed somebody to hold my wallet, with all my money in it, I would hand it to an Esperanto speaker in full confidence that whenever I came back, they would hand it back to me and my money would still be in it. I have that level of confidence and trust in the people I know.
Followed by:
I do understand that if Esperanto begins to become much larger in society that some of the selling points of today will vanish.
I'm going to focus on the former because I would like to sell Esperantismo. Plus not everyone still uses LiveJournal so I'm not really bothering anyone. And I only have a handful of friends here.
There's a song in Esperanto called Sola, about someone who's alone and depressed who learns Esperanto, suddenly discovering all these people out there who can be eir friend. A small, but welcoming community. People who are like-minded without the assholes who would come along with the second pull quote in this post.
Many people are lonely. Having someone with whom to practice a language, talking to each other, is practice for other types of socialization. Socializing in a wider context is, for my lack of perspicacity, is dangerous. More people are keen on arguing, debating, and proving themselves right instead of listening to other people nor getting to know them.
Trust me, I understand. I tried two episodes of a podcast called Beautiful Anonymous where a guy calls people who submit their telephone numbers and they talk for 60 minutes. No more, no less. Either I'm a misanthrope, the anonymous guests just weren't my people, or the host wasn't making the guests interesting. I unsubscribed and thought to myself, "Welp, reckon I'm still a misanthrope. One who's mellowed out, but a misanthrope nonetheless."
In the context of society, being able to speak a language no one else understands, let alone knows about, is huge. It creates a safe space, but it implies trust between the speakers that neither are assholes who will break that trust. That bond. It's like going to psychological therapy, in public, but knowing your secrets are safe. Being able to communicate with any human being is important, and Esperanto facilitates that for folks.
Even misanthropes like me. Misanthropes who still struggle with correlatives. Misanthropes who realize how cringey and teenager-ly these kinds of musings can be interpreted by readers.
For what it's worth, another reason why I like Esperanto is the ability to write "adoleskanta" for "teenager-ly" without the need for a hyphen. Just use the letter "a" to convey an adjective and you're done. Also how a sentence like "I should shower then go somewhere" is shorter as "Mi duŝus kaj iri ien."
Yet I still face challenges with the accusative.